This Wednesday, Steven P. Jobs will step to the stage at the Yerba Buena

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Center for the Arts in San Francisco and unveil a shiny new machine that may or may not change the world.

In the magician’s world, that’s called ‘‘the reveal.’’ And the most magical part? Even as the media and technology worlds have anticipated this announcement for months, Apple has said not Word 1 about TheDevice. Reporting on the announcement has become crowdsourced, with thousands of technology and media journalists scrambling for the latest wisp and building on the reporting of others.

However miraculous the thingamajig turns out to be — all rumors point to some kind of tabletlike device — it cannot be more remarkable than the control that Apple and Mr. Jobs have over their audience.

‘‘The reason that we all write about Apple is because we are, of course, interested, but also because everybody likes to read about Apple,’’ said Matt Buchanan, a contributing editor at the technology Web site Gizmodo. ‘‘Even if they hate Apple.’’ As an organization, Apple is more disciplined in managing message than even the Barack Obama campaign, with a culture — some would say cult — of corporate omertà. The only reason we know that the tablet is for real, that it is probably a 10-inch touch device that will cost $600 to $1,000, is that at some point, Apple had to reach out to partners who did not share its sense of pristine hygiene around information.

‘‘Other companies put things in beta, let people try it out and then bring it out,’’ said Steven Levy, a senior writer at the magazine Wired. ‘‘With Apple, they say nothing, build the suspense and then say: ‘Here it is. You may discuss.’ Other companies don’t have the discipline, the heart, to do that.’’ John Gruber, who writes at Daring- Fireball.net, says that there may be a business and communications lesson here: Make something, rather than talk about it. ‘‘When I was younger, I used to love to go to the Philly car show, but I learned after a while that the coolest cars at the show — the prototypes — never get built,’’ he said. ‘‘Apple builds and unveils actual products. They don’t do prototypes.’’ Even David Blaine, who is a real magician, calls Mr. Jobs ‘‘the ultimate showman who keeps the audience excited the whole way leading up to the reveal.’’ The strategy carries a measure of risk: Apple TV and the Cube were both introduced with the fanfare of an ocean liner but behaved more like boat anchors in the marketplace. And iTunes was a soft unveiling that took its time in taking over the world in part because it came out on a Mac-only platform.

But more often than not, Apple has delivered on Mr. Jobs’s showmanship.

People remember the debut of the iPhone three years ago, and Apple’s promise that it would change everything.

It promptly did, so who wants to miss out on the reveal for the next big thing? (I took the bait, by the way.) Other properties unique to Apple may be at work. There is a well-chronicled reality distortion field around Mr. Jobs, and his bout with illness and industrious recovery have only reinforced his otherworldly properties. That aura, combined with the company’s history of producing technology that transforms entire industries, means it is best to remain vigilant, even when the company is saying nothing.

Another media dynamic is in play: shared interests. Because the tablet is said to create a new digital reading experience, offering publishing companies a kind of do-over, many media types see the tablet as a life preserver in the midst of tall waves. Already, the prospective challenge has pushed Amazon to open up its Kindle reader to applications and sweetened royalty arrangements for certain kinds of content.

There was a suggestion at the beginning of the month that Apple actually quietly engages with the news media in a way that does not leave fingerprints.

Writing for The Mac Observer, John Martellaro, a former senior marketing manager at Apple, said it had happened before: ‘‘The way it works is that a senior exec will come in and say: ‘We need to release this specific information. John, do you have a trusted friend at a major outlet? If so, call him/her and have a conversation. Idly mention this information and suggest that if itwere published, that would be nice. No e-mails!’’’ That would be news to people who have covered Apple for decades.

‘‘What Steve wants to do more than anything is surprise the world,’’ said John Markoff, the longtime technology reporter at The New York Times. ‘‘It is not in his interest to have a steady drip of product information before he takes the stage.’’ Paul Saffo, a veteran technologist in Silicon Valley who has known Mr. Jobs for years, said he had not seen any traces of Apple in the current frenzy.

‘‘We used to say that Apple was a ship that leaked from the top, but it’s been a lot more like North Korea for the past few years,’’ Mr. Saffo said. ‘‘When you look at the night sky, would you notice a single bright star or a huge black hole? Steve creates a black hole and then fills it in with stars.’’ So it is simple really. If you make a product that turns the culture upside down, drives stock price and reconfigures other industries, you step to the stage amid a herald of trumpets and perform magic.

Just make sure the dang thing works.